Eleven days out from the 2024 presidential election, The Washington Post (The Post) made a decision to opt out of endorsing either presidential candidate, just as its editorial staff prepared to publish an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The controversial decision not to publish the endorsement was made by The Post’s owner, billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Publisher and Chief Executive Officer William Lewis said, “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way.”
The Post is currently under attack by the public for making such a drastic change amidst one of the most significant presidential elections the U.S. has witnessed in the past few decades. “We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions—whom to vote for as the next president.” Lewis added, confirming that he too believes that presidential endorsements by major newspapers are “unnecessary” and stating that Bezos had nothing to do with the decision. The facts have yet to be confirmed.
The public perceived the publication’s action as taking the right wing’s side by deciding not to endorse Harris. “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” said Bob Woodward, an associate editor for The Post.
The Washington Post wasn’t the first major publication to opt out of the 2024 elections. The Los Angeles Times was the first to make the decision. Both newspapers have said they will opt out of presidential endorsements going forward. The shift in political representation, or lack thereof altogether, raises the question of whether or not the choice to stay silent is really for the sake of American democracy or rather a silent shift in political support from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party by the owners of the companies.
The Post has been known to side with Democratic candidates in previous elections, endorsing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020. In an article written during the 2016 election, The Post editorial board called Trump a “bigoted, ignorant, deceitful, narcissistic, vengeful, petty, misogynistic, fiscally reckless, intellectually lazy, contemptuous of democracy and enamored of America’s enemies.” So why opt out now? Is The Post silently endorsing Trump by choosing not to endorse Harris?
Both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times imply that one of the most important American values lies in the freedom to think and make decisions for oneself. Both news outlets argue that by endorsing either candidate, they intrude on the individual decision-making process of each American when it comes to voting. By opting out of endorsements, the papers hope to encourage Americans to make their own decisions without influence from either publication’s endorsements.
However, because The Post is famously known to have supported Democratic views and candidates in the past, this last-minute decision to opt out of endorsing Harris specifically came across as an endorsement for the Republican Party instead, without explicitly being so. Although some staff members of The Post, like William Lewis, state that opting out is all for the sake of democracy, others disagree. In a one-paragraph opinion piece published by The Post only hours after the decision was made, eight columnists called this decision a “terrible mistake.”
Amidst one of the most significant presidential elections in the country’s history that will be the deciding factor of the quality of life for many Americans in the next four years—if not an even larger portion of the future—the decision to opt out of presidential endorsements made by both The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times ultimately deprive Americans of crucial information about political candidates while silently appearing to side with the Republican Party. Democracy is all about giving people a voice, which the staff members of both news outlets have now been robbed of. Writers, journalists, and activists are not being given a chance to raise awareness of what the future holds if either candidate wins, and readers are being denied information about the political state of our country.
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